From: Brian Zeiler
I received this transcript of an article over a mailing
list. The
Belgium sightings are one of the most compelling military
cases ever.
What's encouraging is that the governments of European
countries admit
when they don't know what's flying around their skies,
but the American
government has (intentionally) fostered a culture of
ridicule and
auto-debunkery.
FROM: SUNDAY EXPRESS NEWSPAPER - DATED: 17TH SEPTEMBER
1995
This strange flying object was seen by thousands and
chased by jets. But
after 5 years no one can explain it.
The evening skies over Belgium were crystal clear when
the reports began
to come in - first in their tens and then in their
hundreds.
They spoke of a large triangular object, with bright
lights at its three
corners and centre, floating low at a snails pace across
the sky in
uncanny silence.
It was the beggining of a mystery that has baffled
scientists for five
years - the best attested sighting of a UFO ever
reported, and the one
that refuses more stubbornly to yield to rational
explanation.
For the object in the sky was tracked on radar and
photographed by
fighter pilots. It was sighted by no fewer than 13,500
people on the
ground - 2,600 of whom, including judges and police,
filed written
statements describing in detail what they had seen.
And today the Sunday Express can reveal a confidential
letter in which
formaer Belgium Defence Minister Leo Delcroix admits that
despite the
most rigorous offical investigation, no earthly
explanation has been
found.
The sightings are being treated with much seriousness
this weekend that
the EC is looking anew at plans to set up a UFO tracking
centre.
And the European Parliament has promised a full inquiry -
amid strong
calls for the British Ministry to be more open about its
own
investigations and findings.
As the reports began to come in on that March evening in
1990, military
trackers a few miles south of Brussels picked up a large
unidentified
object on their radar. Two F-16 fighters were scrambled
from Beauvechain,
the nearest airbase, to intercept.
They climbed to 3,000 feet and locked on to the craft,
reporting back to
base that they had intercepted a "structured UFO". But
then suddenly,
according to the pilots, it began to behave in an
extraordinary way.
Their on-board radar screens registered a quickly
changing diamond shape,
which suddenly accelerated to 600mph before slowing just
as abruptly to
170mph. Then it plunged 3,300 feet in two seconds and
accelerated from
170mph to 1,100mph in the same time. There was a marked
absence of any
sonic boom.
According to the instruments aboard the fighters, the
craft pulled away
at 46G - 46 times the force of gravity - enough to crush
any human body
to pulp. It headed west across the English Channel
towards the fields of
Kent before disappearing into the night sky.
During their 65 minute observation, the pilots took 15
photographs. But
pursuit in their F-16s, capable of more than twice the
speed of sound,
was impossible.
Over the previous months, there had been sightings of a
srikingly similar
object in the skies over Belgium. And now there was hard
scientific
evidence to support them.
In his confidential letter, Mr Delcroix admitted to the
British writer
Derek Sheffield, who has been investigating the "Belgium
Wave" sightings,
that there had been at least one earlier attempt by
Belgium F-16s to
intercept a similar UFO.
The Minister ruled out the possibility that what the
witnesses had seen
was a Stealth bomber, an AWACS or hightech F-117 Stealth
fighter. He
could only conclude that there was no rational
explanation of the
evidence.
Last night a spokesman from the Belgium Ministery of
Defence said: "These
incidents were, and still are, being treated with the
upmost seriousness.
We gave chase but could not begin to keep up in the
F-16s. Perhaps we
will never fully fathom this mysterious business, but we
continue to
try."
In Britain, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Hill-Norton has
lent his authroity
to the call for greater openness over investigations by
the Ministery of
Defence.
The former chairman of NATO's military committee has
agreed to write a
forward to Mr Sheffield's forthcoming book on the
sightings." A Deadly
Concealment" which is to be published in January.
In a letter to the 65 year old writer from Kent he said:
"Let me say at
once that I find the account of the two Belgium sightings
entirely
convincing.
"What is unusual is that the Belgium MoD, police, Air
Force and
politicians have been forthcoming."
Labour spokesman Dr David Clark told the Sunday Express
last night that
despite "solid information" from the Belgiums, the
Ministery of Defence
has persistantly brushed the matter under the carpet.
"They have official recorded information and our view is
the MoD is being
far to secretive. They ought to be much more open on this
issue. If it
wasn't a UFO and was a Stealth bomber then we should be
told."
Paul Beaver, who is a consultant for the highly respected
Jane's Defence
Weekly, said: "The sighting by the F-16s is certainly one
of the best
examples in Europe - fascinating and well documented."
Meanwhile Edward Ashpole, a distinguished scientist whose
book The UFO
Phenomena was published by Headline last week, said of
the Begium
sightings: "The sheer volume of eye-witness accounts plus
the radar
tracking and the air force reports make it hard to
ignore."
He said no American aircraft were present in Belgium
airspace at the time
of the sightings, and that no plane could hover or fly at
only a few
miles in an hour, as many of the listed witnesses
claimed, without
crashing.
Among eye-witness accounts, one of the most vivid comes
from two
sergeants in the Belgium gendarmerie. On November 29th,
1989, four months
before the scrambling of the jets, Heinrich Nicoll and
Hubert Von
Montigny reported two triangular objects hovering at a
very low altitude
south of Brussels.
"It was twilight but still light enough to see," said Von
Montigny.
"Below one of the objects I saw three powerful search
lights directed to
the ground and one orange red flickering light."
The sighting lasted from 5.50pm unitl 8pm when the craft
dissapeared as
mysteriously as it had arrived. They heard a "soft buzz"
and were sure
that what they saw was neither an aircraft nor a
helicopter.
Ten other policemen also gave statements, as well as two
judges and an
engineer, an army colonel and air force meteorologist
Valenzano
Francesco.
On December 1st, 1989, Mr Francesco was driving through
the town of Ans,
near Liege, just before 6pm. "My daughter was in the car
with me," he
said. "I looked up and I saw a flying object at a very
low altitude of
100 to 150 metres."
"What attracted my attention was the blue and red lights
around the
object. When it was above us, we saw three big
'headlights' pointing
downwards."
Army Lt Colonel Andre Amond sighted a UFO later that
month. He was
driving with his wife Chantal from his home to the
station in Gembloux, a
village near Brussels, at 6.45pm.
"In the sky to the right, just above the trees, I saw a
series of three
or four panels of lights, heading from north to south."
he said.
"My wife demanded that I drive on, as the object seemed
to be agressive.
There was no noise at all - the engine was silent. As I
drove off, the
big white light disappeared and was replaced by three
white lights, which
were less powerful."
"They formed a triangle, which was almost equilateral,
and in its centre
of gravity was a larger red light."
"It seems strange, but despite the moonlight, it was
impossible to make
out the shape of the object itself, outside of this
triangle of white
lights."
To this day, nobody knows what it was that those and
thousands of other
witnesses saw. And five years on, in military archives
all over the
world, their evidence remains filed in the cabinet marked
UFO